


you can hear it in the silence

by idlewheel



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, i love my kids!!, ok you know i had to do this, spoilers for HalloVeen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-19 01:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12400380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idlewheel/pseuds/idlewheel
Summary: Rosa tells him,When you know, you know. It’ll come to you and just because it hasn’t yet doesn’t mean it never will.





	you can hear it in the silence

**Author's Note:**

> okay huge spoilers for last night's episode!! BEWARE!!

 

It all starts after Teddy’s gone. He’s sitting in the break room, eating a donut and Rosa asks, “Aren’t you kind of upset?” He shakes his head, confused by the question. He’s upset the precinct might be shutdown. He’s upset that he attended actual hell on Earth also known as jazz brunch.

But, not really.

So, he shrugs, takes another bite of his donut. 

Rosa rolls her eyes, turning the chair around and sitting on it backwards. “Jake, he beat you to it.”

“What?”

“Yeah, you know, Teddy asked her to marry him before you did."

“Ah...” Jake doesn’t have an answer to that. He truthfully hadn’t thought of that before Rosa mentioned it but now that she has, Jake feels queasy. In the midst of all the uncertainty about the precinct, he hadn’t really thought of the fact that, wow, someone proposed to his girlfriend.

That someone being her ex-boyfriend and he did it in front of him. And Jake just stood there.

Wow, the self-loathing comes quick.

Rosa winces and starts to stand, patting his shoulder in sympathy. Jake grabs onto her arm in desperation, holding her in place. Rosa groans under her breath.

“I guess I hadn’t really thought of it.” he begins. Rosa tries to squirm out but Jake has a firm grip on her arm. “Getting engaged, that is. I mean…our relationship is steady, like super rock-steady.”

“Uh-huh.” Rosa tries to pry his fingers off, to no avail.

“Like, I could probably do like a hundred jumps on it and it wouldn’t cave in. That’s how steady it is.” He looks up to her, something akin to desperation in his eyes.

“Okay, I get it, Jake. I regret bringing it up.” Finally, in a brief moment of thoughtful Jake, she undoes his hand. She dances away before he can grab her again. Jake stares at the wall, lost in the forest of his thoughts. Rosa sighs again, knowing that she won’t be able to leave him here without a rock of guilt in her stomach.

She sits again, a little farther this time, and sighs before she says, “It’s not a big deal if you’re not ready to ask. Just because someone asked her doesn’t mean you have to.”

“Yeah, I know that.” He rubs his face and below hands pressed to lips he says, “I don’t think I’m ready though.” He drops his hands in guilt. “I mean, I know I love Amy but…I guess I’m…” he winces, ashamed. “not ready to be married.” He groans. “What if I’m never ready?”

He drops his eyes to the table and Rosa groans, hating the goddamn _caring_ feel in her chest.

“Jake, I am going to tell you a very personal detail of my past and I will seriously kill you if you tell anybody this.” she says through gritted teeth. Jake widens his eyes, looks more serious than he’s ever looked in all of his life.

“Okay, I’m all ears.”

Rosa sighs, looks up at the light bulb and wonders why she’s even sharing this with him. She decides because the scared look on his face was kind of pathetic and because, fine, she cares about him. Ugh, she hates having feelings. “I was engaged once before Adrian.”

His eyes widen automatically, mouth forming a million and one questions. Rosa shuts him up with a look. Jake nods and keeps mum, but the questions remain behind his eyes. “She was my high school girlfriend. We got engaged right after high school. It was young love.”

“Wait, right _after_ high-” Rosa’s death glare slaps the rest of the question off his mouth. He nods for her to continue.

“I broke it off because I knew that I wasn’t ready.” she shrugs. “Just as I know I’m not ready now.”

Jake nods, his eyes solemn and thoughtful. Rosa stands again, pats his shoulder a little too hard. He winces but tries to play it off. “When you know, you know. It’ll come to you and just because it hasn’t yet doesn’t mean it never will.”

She leaves him to sit in the information. He rubs his shoulder now that she’s gone. Jake’s eyes travel through the window, sitting on Amy as she talks with Terry. Her back is pin straight and he can tell that she’s correcting Terry on something by the sigh he emits.

Jake smiles.

He’s not ready yet but he’s more than sure he’ll be ready soon.

-

There are fleeting moments in which he this he’s ready. After the precinct is saved, her sargent’s exam , the time she watched Die Hard 4 without falling asleep. However, deep in the pit of his stomach, he knows that this isn’t it. He repeats the words that Rosa told him.

_When you know, you know._

-

(But when he knows, he’s taken away from her.)

-

April 28, a day so insignificant any other year. But, this year, it’s when the fire inside his stomach glows, when it lets him know that he’s ready.

It’s after a long day at work, he cooks while Amy calls her family for their weekly phone-call. Jake pretends he doesn’t smell the cigarette smoke wafting towards the kitchen. They eat in almost silence and he plays Candy Crush while Amy showers.

It’s a simple night, a regular night. The stars don’t dance, the moon doesn’t shine on them like a limelight.

He’s playing on his phone, Amy’s doing her nightly crossword. He’s thinking of the case he’s working on and the fact that there’s no way in hell he’s going to pass level 25 without a cheat code.

But then, she says, “There’s a typo in this crossword puzzle!”

And he knows.

-

It’s such a mundane moment but yet, so monumental. It’s just _them_.

-

Now that he knows, he kind of wants to tell everybody, wants to shout it from the mountain top. But he doesn’t want to tell Boyle. He’s afraid his best friend’s heart is going to burst and Jake isn’t sure how he feels about that. Instead, he stews in it. Let’s it settle in and tries to think of the perfect proposal.

Ideally, the sun would shine like a spotlight, the birds would cease their singing as he got down on one knee and asked her. She’d say yes with tears in her eyes. There’d also be a horse drawn carriage that would take them to an empty movie theatre where they would watch Die Hard on a loop and make out.

But, funnily, life doesn’t work out that way.

Rosa finds out right away and doesn’t fully acknowledge it. She knocks into his shoulder as she walks into work, nods, says, “Finally.”

And he can’t stop smiling for days because, it’s really going to happen, he’s going to do it.

But then, Lieutenant Hawkins happens. Then, he’s in court and his future lies in the judge’s hands.

And then, he’s sent away. Fifteen years for a bank robbery he didn’t do. He sees his life with Amy slowly crawl down the drain.

“Sorry, dude.” Rosa whispers under her breath as they handcuff them and lead them away.

Jake already knows for what.

-

Prison is not as bad as he thought it was going to be. Okay, his cellmate Caleb is a weird dude and okay, he misses Amy like freaking hell but prison’s nice. He’s even grown a prison beard. Kind of patchy, but, whatever, Amy likes it. Every time he sees her, he thinks of the fact that he’s ready to live the rest of his life with her but he can’t. Probably never will if the squad doesn’t get off their butts and help him get out.

But, he knows they’re working hard. The dark circles under Amy’s eyes tell him that she’s spend long nights worrying about him and he just wants to wipe them away.

At night, when it’s just him and his thoughts (and Caleb), he dreams of days spent with her. He craves normal Saturday afternoons. How she would try to cook dinner every single time and how she would fail _every_ _single_ _time_.

The little disappointed look on her face at yet another uncooked chicken, at yet another batch of burned pasta.

He craves that little look on her face when they bet on something stupid. Like that one time where they bet one another that they could eat a whole basket of wings in under ten minutes.

Bad idea.

He reminisces of all the times he saw that dangerous glint in her eyes. Before they were together, even after, and most importantly, Halloween.

It comes to him. Halloween, the most festive day of the year.

He tries to jump out of bed but forgets he’s on the bottom bunk and hits his head. He ignores the throbbing as he sits on the ratty desk and grabs a piece of paper.

He begins to plan the heist. He knows that he’s probably going to rot in this cell but there’s no harm in imagining it. It’s the only thing that’s going to keep him company as he rots away in this dingy prison cell.

-

Amy and the squad get him out, just like he knew they would. (Okay, he did lose faith for a bit. Prison changes a person, even if you only go for a little over two months.)

-

His plan is back on as soon as he leaves prison, the little sketches he wrote hidden in his shoe. As soon as they hug one another for the first time, his heart almost bursts. _God_ , is he ready.

He hides the pieces of his plan in one of his Die Hard DVDs, there’s so many that Amy wouldn’t know where to look. And also, she hates Die Hard so she would never open them. He seriously can’t believe he’s going to propose to a Die Hard hater.

He calls Amy’s dad Sunday morning, knowing he’s at Church and wanting to avoid him. He leaves a lengthy voicemail, talking about how much he loves Amy, how he’s going to propose, and okay, maybe even mentions her butt once.

Okay, twice. _Fine_ , three times.

He calls him mom next and she answers first ring. He tells her everything, glad to get it off his chest. He mentions calling Gina and asking her to find a ring.

“No son of mine is going to _buy_ a ring.” she urges and tells him to come as soon as he can.

As soon as he walks in she hands him a velvet box. At his look, she says, “It’s not the ring your father gave me. Think I would give bad voodoo to my son? It’s nana’s ring. Now come in and tell me everything. I bet you haven’t eaten blue cake since you got out of prison.”

-

 _there are many days where he just wants to grab the ring and ask her. like when she goes to the grocery store and she grabs that cereal she knows that he likes or the time they were struggling to find parking and she pointed at one. or when he wakes up and she’s already showered and ready, reading the morning crossword during breakfast. he wants to grab her hand and say,_ there’s nothing more I want in life than to spend the rest of my life with you _._

_literally, any time he looks at her but no, he has to wait for the heist. he wants it to be special._

-

That night before the heist, he gets home pretty late after a dinner out with Boyle, where they fixed the last details in their Halloween plan. He still hadn’t told Boyle about the proposal or his nana’s old ring. He knew that Boyle would never be able to keep the excitement at bay.

When he gets home, Amy is in the kitchen, going over a case. Her hair is tied up in a crazy bun, little pieces looking like feathers dusting her face. She pushes them back as she reads. Jake wants nothing more than to stand there and stare at her for hours, drinking every one of her movements in. Just one more day, he reminds himself. She gazes up at him and her eyes brighten dangerously at his gaze.

“Excited for the heist tomorrow?” she asks, her voice carrying the competitive edge he loves. “I’m going to obliterate you.”

“Oh, I think you’ll be surprised by what I have up my sleeve.”

“It’d have to be something really big because you really can’t surprise me anymore.” She shrugs a pointy little shrug, her eyes full of mirth and Jake grins.

_You literally have no idea_.

She kisses him goodnight later that night and knocks out quickly, her body prepping for the big day that lies ahead.

Jake tiptoes to the kitchen and reaches towards the back of the cupboard. He passes his old nudie mags and his signed Taylor Swift CD, past those old prized possessions, and grabs the little velvet box. He looks over his shoulder and cracks it open, the little hinge making the quietest sound and his whole face softens as he gazes at the ring.

Underneath the moonlight, the diamond looks almost purple and he smiles softly.

Remembering what Rosa said, about Teddy beating him to the proposal, he laughs. Yeah, Teddy was the first one to ask her but he is going to be the first one to get a ‘yes’.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this last year when Teddy returned but I was stuck and I soon abandoned it. But last night, I dug into my archives and finished it. Now, here it is! Please let me know what you thought in the comments!!  
> Also,I made a tumblr: idlewheelposts.tumblr.com  
> it's still in maintenance but I plan on uploading fics once a week! On here and there!


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